Addison Logan, 13, bought an old Polaroid camera at a garage sale Thursday, May 24, 2012, and said he opened it when he got home to discover a photograph inside. He showed it to his grandmother, Lois Logan who asked where he found the picture. Addison said, "in that old camera." Lois said, "That's your Uncle Scott and a girl he dated when he was about 17." Scott Logan died in a car accident in 1989 when he was 29 years old. The girlfriend in the picture is Susan Ely. (May 25, 2012.) The Wichita Eagle

Addison Logan, 13, bought an old Polaroid camera at a garage sale Thursday, May 24, 2012, and said he opened it when he got home to discover a photograph inside. He showed it to his grandmother, Lois Logan who asked where he found the picture. Addison said, "in that old camera." Lois said, "That's your Uncle Scott and a girl he dated when he was about 17." Scott Logan died in a car accident in 1989 when he was 29 years old. The girlfriend in the picture is Susan Ely. (May 25, 2012.) The Wichita Eagle

Wichita boy’s garage-sale buy holds a treasure for his family

Editor's note: This story has been modified from the original version.

Addison Logan, 13, probably wouldn’t have gone to the garage sale Thursday if he hadn’t broken his arm in a dirt bike accident a couple of weeks ago.

He probably would have been riding the bike.

Instead, Addison, who likes garage sales, was driving around to some of them with his grandmother, Lois Logan, in west Wichita. After three stops, he finally found something he wanted to buy. It was an old Polaroid camera at a house about a mile away from his grandmother’s house. He thought the camera was “pretty cool,” he said. He bought it for $1.

Never miss a local story.

Sign up today for a free 30 day free trial of unlimited digital access.

Back at his grandmother’s house, Addison got on the Internet to find out how to take a picture with it. When he removed the cartridge and opened it, he found an old photograph inside. He took the photo to his grandmother.

Lois Logan said she looked at the photo and saw her son, Scott, who died in an auto accident 23 years ago.

The photo showed Scott sitting on a sofa with a high school girlfriend, Susan. Lois guessed it was taken in 1978 or 1979, about 10 years before his death. She didn’t remember the photo, but thought it must be one of her old ones.

When Addison told her he found it inside the camera he’d just bought at the garage sale, she thought he was kidding.

“It was really weird,” she said.

Nobody else in the family could believe it, either.

“I’m just shocked,” said Scott’s brother, Blake Logan, on Friday. “The more time that passes, the more in disbelief I am. So many things have to come together for that to happen. It just seems supernatural.”

Blake and another brother, Jeff Logan, have speculated that Addison finding the photo might be a sign from Scott.

“It’s almost like he’s reaching out to us, saying he’s still with us,” said Blake, who is Addison’s father.

The Logans said they don’t know the people who were having the garage sale. The man who sold the camera to Addison told them he goes to a lot of garage sales, and he couldn’t remember where he got it, Lois said. They can’t think of any connection to the house.

Jeff Logan thought Susan, who long ago married and moved away, may have lived somewhere in the neighborhood in those days. But Blake said that neighborhood didn’t exist back then.

Other than that, they have no clue how the photo turned up there.

“Who knows, really?” said Lois Logan, whose husband died about 12 years ago.

Scott Logan was 28 when he died. He was a single dad selling vacuum cleaners door to door to make some extra cash before he started a new job with an insurance company.

He was driving on I-70 on business when he fell asleep at the wheel. The car left the road and flipped, ejecting him, Lois Logan said.

Scott’s son was 4 when Scott died. He now lives in Columbia, Mo. Blake Logan posted the photo on Facebook and sent it to him Thursday. He wrote back Friday.

“Wow,” his message said.

Seven years before Scott died, another brother, Brian, died in a car accident at 19. A friend was driving him home from a back-to-college party in Wichita, Lois said. The car left the road and flipped, ejecting Brian.

Both sons died of broken necks, she said.

Jeff, 53, the oldest brother, was a year older than Scott, and very close to him. They played a lot of golf tournaments together. Every time Jeff plays in one, he thinks of Scott.

“Is that miraculous, or what?” he said about the photo turning up the way it did.

“When you get something like that, that’s almost like a sign telling us, ‘Hey, everything’s all right, I’m still here,’ ” Jeff said.

Lois Logan has no doubt about it.

“I think both of them are looking out for all of us,’ she said. “I’ve always felt that.”